150,000 chickens perish as Ibaraki poultry farm goes up in flames

Around 150,000 chickens perished after a fire erupted on a poultry farm in Bando City, Ibaraki Prefecture, on Wednesday afternoon and raged on into the evening, destroying three small buildings on the property by 6:30 p.m.

No people were injured, but the buildings that contained around 150,000 birds were razed.

Police said that the blaze continued into Thursday morning with more than 10 fire trucks on the scene.

Here in Virginia and Maryland out on the penninsula, there are massive chicken farms that supply companies like Tyson. I can easily believe the buildings housing the chickens contained 40,000 each. Here's a photo of the inside one of the Maryland houses: http://encarta.msn.com/media461538418/MarylandChicken_Farm.html

50,000 chickens per building? What kind of conditions did they live and die in? Sounds awful.

If you demand cheap eggs and cheap meat, and happily munch on karaage and all the other delicacies the birds end up as, you're at least partly to blame for the profitability of these chicken factories.